Every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him.

Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.

With nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties.

Every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will.

If, in my retirement to the humble station of a private citizen, I am accompanied with the esteem and approbation of my fellow citizens, trophies obtained by the bloodstained steel, or the tattered flags of the tented field, will never be envied. The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right.